“I’d need an actual sample with real data before I could market it to her, and I’ll never get that without lab time,” I responded.
“Make the lab yourself,” she threw out casually.
I burst into laughter. “A nanoparticle lab? Yeah. Because I have the multi-millions of dollars to do that.”
She fidgeted with her perfectly manicured nails, and I felt bad for flinging my statement at her, because Raisa was rich. I wasn’t sure what range of millions she existed in, but it was rich enough for her family’s home to be an old Romanov mansion outside St. Petersburg. The last thing I wanted was for her to think I was asking her to sponsor my project.
She pushed my shoulder with a bright-red nail. “I didn’t mean jump right to the cellular level. You could easily set up a lab to do the base testing. Build a case study to show her.”
Maybe.
Before I could give it more thought, the office door opened again, and Silas entered. His black hair gleamed in the LED lighting, a gleam that was reflected in his almost-black eyes. He was lean and handsome, wearing his normal apparel of dress pants and a button-down shirt pressed to perfection. Even back when we’d first met at Berkeley, he’d always dressed as if he were going to work at a finance firm. It had made him stand out as much as his brain and his sex appeal.
“How’d it go?” he asked, lips stretching into a smile that lit up his eyes.
“You should see the numbers,” Raisa told him excitedly, waving him over.
He joined us, putting a hand on my shoulder and looking at the data on the screen. I’d wished the same thing I had every time he touched me lately. I wished I felt more. I wished I felt butterflies in my stomach and goosebumps along my skin. I wished I could return his adoration with more than simple admiration.
My stomach flopped.
“Wow… This is… Wow,” he said. Silas was rarely without words, so I knew he saw the truth as clearly as I did. Raisa’s energy project was going to change everything. No more piles of lithium-ion batteries leaching into the earth. No more rolling blackouts. A true gift to Mother Earth.
Raisa’s smile grew impossibly bigger. “Okay, I’m going to go take a look just because I’ll feel like I’m dreaming until I see it for myself.”
She headed toward the clean-room doors, sticking her feet in the shoe cleaner before stepping to the sticky mat. “Consider what I said, Violet. It’s a real solution.”
She left me alone with Silas.
“What’s she talking about?” he asked, moving to lean against the desk so he could see my face.
“She suggested going it on my own. Making a lab myself.”
His eyes darkened. “The committee rejected your proposal? I told you they would.”
It hurt more than it should have that the man I was dating, king of the science world, was on their side instead of mine. He’d even brought his beloved parents into the discussion last weekend when we’d been at their house for dinner. They’d all jumped to the same conclusion. While what I was talking about was a good idea, it wasn’t earth-shattering enough to justify expensive lab time or a Ph.D. thesis.
I moved away from him, opening the lockers to retrieve my bag.
“Don’t be mad at me for stating the truth,” he said, following.
“I’m not mad,” I responded honestly. I wasn’t. I was…frustrated. Sad. Hurt. Wondering when I’d feel like I was doing more than just going through the motions again. But nowhere in my mixed bag of feelings was mad.
“Why don’t you come onboard with my project? We can tear out the chemistry piece, and that should be juicy enough for the Ph.D. board and the lab Nazis to approve your thesis.”
He’d offered several times. The fact that he didn’t realize how little jumping in on someone else’s theories would ever appeal to me was almost depressing. I didn’t want to be the sidekick. I wanted to prove I could be the superhero my sister, Jersey, had once thought I could be.
When I hesitated, he asked, “Just think about it, okay?”
His soft hand rubbed my arm in a way that was meant to be comforting, and it was ridiculous that I wanted to jerk my arm away. Especially when he kissed me regularly. Since we often shared a bed and found satisfaction together. But lately, the more he touched me, the more I found it hard to block out